They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, although in my case, it would probably be fonderer. Except that fonderer isn’t a real word, and it doesn’t really make any sense anyway.
So in my case, it would be would be absence makes the heart grow even more fond.
Absence and exile.
It’s not that I want to be away, you understand. But rather that I must. I have a series of spectacularly early mornings to get up for work for several times this week (which I need to be on the ball for) and I have to look after my nieces on Wednesday evening, all of which means that I quite possibly won’t be in Taps until Friday after work (oh, yes, it rends my heart). Although I will try for Thursday.
Which for me is a long time to be away. A very long time indeed. And I miss the Taps dearly, because it’s just miserable.
I once had a friend named Stella Andy (well I suppose I still do have a friend named Stella Andy, it’s just that we fell out of contact a couple of years ago so I’m not sure if he still considers me to be a friend or not. Although, should that impact on whether on not I can say that I have a friend named Stella Andy? Because I still consider him a friend so does it really matter what he thinks? I mean it shouldn't really, should it). And Stella Andy was one of a number of after work regulars at the 3 Tuns Bar (which was my after work local for many years) at the LSE.
[He was called Stella Andy because for a number of years, before anyone knew him, he would come to the pub at lunchtime – these being the days when you could drink at lunchtime - and after work, and stand at the bar drinking Stella. And so the bar staff just referred to him between themselves as Stella Man – I’ve come to understand that bar staff refer to their customers under any such number of often unflattering sobriquets all the time – for years (which all the regulars came to refer to him as), until it eventually became known that his name was Andy, after which he was just called Stella Andy by everyone from that point onwards].[1]
Now I recall someone once asking him why he went to the pub every night after work instead of going home, to which he could only plaintively and with utter incredulity reply: ‘And do what? Watch television?’
And it’s true. At least for people like myself [and Stella Andy] anyway. I mean seriously, I’m supposed to go home and watch Come Dine with Me, and Hell’s Kitchen USA? That’s what I’m supposed to do? Really?
I’m supposed to get up and go to work everyday at ungodly o’clock in the morning. Get on the train. Struggle onto the tube and then work hard all day, and then struggle back home, just so that I can enjoy the dubious pleasure of watching Top fucking Gear?
How on earth do people do that?
Obviously I understand that most people in the country manage to successfully do it, but for me it’s just totally bleedin’ miserable. I mean it’s just not normal.
Anyway, I’ll keep you updated.
Oh, and nobody sit on my stool.
[I’m watching you]
[1] As it happens I was in a random conversation with another random regular at the 3 Tuns named Ron, years ago, and we were just talking about the names people have in the pub e.g. ‘Tall Paul’, Scabby Mark’, ‘Scottish Jim’, ‘Stella Andy’, ‘Stev Dave’ and so on, and he told me that there was a bloke in his pub called legless Jim, and I asked him was that because he got absolutely hammered all the time and he said no, it’s because he doesn’t have any legs.
That made me laugh.
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